What Is Magical Realism?

“It was as if God had decided to put to the test every capacity for surprise . . . to such an extreme that no-one knew for certain where the limits of reality lay. It was an intricate stew of truths and mirages that convulsed the ghost of José Arcadio Buendía with impatience and made him wander all through the house even in broad daylight.”

What Is Magical Realism?

Magical realism is an oft-confused genre. Agents and editors frequently say they want to find magical realistic stories, but what exactly does that mean?

It is perhaps the most misunderstood concept in literature in part because the genre/style is very specific while also being intentionally ambiguous. As Mexican literary critic Luis Leal said, “If you can explain it, then it’s not magical realism.”

So what is magical realism, then? It isn’t straight fantasy, or even urban fantasy, which incorporates mythical creatures and magic systems into the contemporary world, but it’s not completely realistic either. It doesn’t fit neatly into any one category, which makes it hard to label. But as we all know, the publishing world loves to attach labels to books.

Essentially, magical realism is:

Real-world setting + fantastical elements = magical realism

In visual terms, think of it as a photo that’s blurred around the edges to give it an ethereal, almost otherworldly quality. It has the feel of magic—that anything is possible.

Magical realism focuses on ordinary people going about the humdrum activities of daily life. Everything is normal—except for one or two elements that go beyond the realm of possibility, whether it be magic or fate or a physical connection with the earth and the creatures that inhabit it, but always in a way that celebrates the mundane.

Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI)Previously known as the Verla Kay Blueboards, the SCBWI forum has tons of great info, much of which applies to writers in general, and not just for children's books. And no, you don't have to be a member of SCBWI to access most of the boards, although some forums are set aside for members only.

A Brief History

Despite the common misconception, magical realism didn’t originate in South America. Instead, German art critic Franz Roch coined the term “magical realism” in 1925 to describe the New Objectivity style of painting. A few years later, the concept of magical realism crossed the ocean to South America, where it was adopted and popularized by Latin American authors throughout the twentieth century as lo real maravilloso, the marvelous real. Notable writers include Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Isabel Allende, among numerous others.

While Hispanic writers were—and still are—a major influence in modern magical realistic literature, the style is not limited to a specific time or place. In fact, writers from across the world have adopted and adapted magical realism to fit their own cultures and within their own frame of reference.

In general, magical realism is literary, in scope and tone and style. Many works of magical realism have a lyrical or ethereal quality to the writing. Even the way sentences are phrased adds to the mystical feel of the genre.

Writers of magical realism play upon the unexplainable events in peoples’ lives, making the extraordinary and fantastical almost believable. In the end, readers are never quite sure what’s real and what isn’t; they just know that it could be possible. It reveals the magic that is in the world around us.

When done well, magical realism convinces us of what we’ve always hoped: that magic exists, that wishes do come true, that beyond science exists a reality that defies rational explanation. We want magic to be real, and so we look for it in the most unassuming places, in the ordinary events of our day-to-day lives.

15 Comments

I’ve really struggled with what is and what isn’t magical realism for an embarrassing amount of time, even while studying Gabriel Garcia Marquez in college.

I had it explained to me like this: there is one (maybe two) elements that are out of the ordinary or “magical” but the characters in the story are all suspending their disbelief about this aspect without question, putting the reader in the position to do the same. Would you agree with this?

Also, this has me thinking, are the pants in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants an element of magical realism in that they fit all the girls perfectly even though that’s theoretically impossible? Just a thought.

That’s a good way of describing it. As for Sisterhood, I haven’t read the books so I can’t say for sure, but yes, that is an element that could work as magical realism in a novel. The determining factor, though, is in the writing and tone. I’ll go into it in more detail in the third part of the series, but magical realism in novels makes them *feel* magical, as though something beyond human understanding is at play.

I forgot to mention why I posted that image above, so I’ll have to add that in, but essentially, it was a day when the sun and the clouds and the water all hit that perfect moment, when it felt like something strange and wonderful and magical was in the air. A moment out of time when anything and everything was possible. I just wanted to sit there and soak it in until the last of the light faded behind the mountains. That’s what I feel when I read novels with magical realism. Because it’s so hard to capture in humdrum day-to-day living, it’s something I want to experience while I read.

This is interesting to me because I’m starting to realize that things I have written that I thought were magical realism actually are not at all. Oops. I may revisit this in my own writing. What I was lacking in clarification before was definitely the part about tone/magical feelings, which I’m realizing is hard to pull off and certainly would feel magical to a reader if done correctly. I think this element is definitely present in Sisterhood, the magic pants symbolizing the magical/anything-is-possible vibe that holds together their friendship and pervades each book.

Thanks for the explanation about the photo–a great visual when trying to recall the feelings a writer may want to evoke.

I’m finishing up my novel titled, “My Childhood Sweetheart.” Here’s the synopsis. You might be interested. I’ll do a formal query. In “My Childhood Sweetheart,” Isabella and Lucas, two professionals in their respective medical and legal practices, find themselves engaged in a battle to save their marriage from heading towards a divorce and breaking apart their family and businesses. They were madly in love with each other since elementary school but mystical forces took control of their lives and they each became pawns on the battlefield of good and evil doing their best to understand the spiritual vortex that surrounded them. This novel is based upon true events. This battle occurred on two fronts: in a court of law and the laws of spirits.

As an fyi, blog posts (or any social media, really) are not an appropriate place to pitch your manuscript. Pretty much every agent or editor will tell you to query them the traditional route, unless they’ve set up a specific pitch event via social media, like #pitmad and such.

(I hope that doesn’t sound harsh, because it’s not intended to be. It’s really just an fyi.)